“Don’t move,” he said softly to her. “Please, don’t move. I will explode into pieces if you move.”
He leaned up onto his strong arms to gaze down at her. Taffy felt drunk. She was. She was dick drunk. She stared back at him through half-lidded eyes, and smiled at him.
“I didn’t know anything could feel that amazing,” she said to him.
Jean-Michel planted small kisses along her forehead and then on her lips. “I’m sorry I couldn’t last too long,” he said with a smile. “But when you tightened your pussy, I couldn’t help but surrender.”
Last too long, she thought. It had been fifteen minutes. Not fifteen minutes including foreplay. She glanced over to the wall clock. It had been an hour total. Holy shit, the man was amazing. He’d lasted longer than any man she’d known. And he was still sheathed inside of her.
“But next time,” he said to her. “I will have you in my bed. Then, I will take my time with you, coquette.”
He began kissing her deeply, shocking her senses as she felt his cock begin to grow once more. The doorbell rang.
Jean-Michel stared down at her in surprise. “Oh, shit. It’s Thalia!” He abruptly got up, leaving her body instantly, as Taffy followed him trying to find the rest of her clothes.
“Your sister?” Her underwear was a lost cause, but she hurriedly wrestled her breasts into her bra, as Jean-Michel pulled himself together.
“I’m sorry,” he said pulling his shirt on and buttoning the few buttons that were left on it. “I forgot she has a package from our mother.” He helped Taffy tie her dress around her neck.
“Jean-Michel?” Thalia was heard from the front door.
“Yes! Just a minute, Thalia!” he said looking around to make sure there was no evidence of two people fucking in the living room. He gave Taffy another quick kiss, smiling as if they’d been discovered making out by his friends in his car. She had to admit it was a little exciting. She scanned the room for her panties, but they had apparently disappeared. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do anything about Jean-Michel’s cum running down the inside of her thighs, so she sat down hoping she wouldn’t leave a telltale wet spot on his sofa.
Thalia walked into the living room, giving Taffy a somewhat knowing smile. “Taffy.” She walked over and gave Taffy a hug. “It’s so nice to see you again. I didn’t know you were having dinner with Jean-Michel. I apologize.”
Thalia looked over at her brother with a knowing gaze. Then, she sat the package down on the table in front of the sofa. “Our mother thinks we are still twelve and in camp,” Jean-Michel said to Taffy. “She sends packages to Thalia, and always puts something in it for me because I specifically told her she doesn’t have to send me things every month.”
“Jean-Michel, she only loves us,” said Thalia. “She wants us to know she is thinking about us. Oh!” Thalia exclaimed, as she opened the box. “Your socks!” Thalia held up a pair of orange and blue knitted socks. “The socks that you love so much, Jean-Michel!”
Jean-Michel quickly walked over to where Thalia was standing by the box, took the socks from his sister’s hand and stuffed them unceremoniously back into the box. “Yes, okay,” he said smiling uneasily at Taffy. “I’ll see them later.”
Thalia stood staring between Taffy and her brother. Taffy finally found her tongue, which had gone numb at the surprise guest. “I really enjoyed dinner the other night, Thalia. Your family is beautiful.”
“Thank you, Taffy,” Thalia said, walking closer to her. “You must come over again. But we will see each other this week, no? I will come over to the house to get a better perspective and show you some samples.”
“Yes, so if you wouldn’t mind,” Jean-Michel said abruptly. “We were in the middle of a conversation.”
Thalia smiled knowingly at her brother and then at Taffy. “Yes, of course. I have had several conversations in my life. They can be very…interesting, yes? Taffy,” she said hugging Taffy again, before walking to the door with her brother.
Taffy glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 10:37. She had several projects to finish before she would be allowed to put all of her attention on the house. That was where she wanted it. On the house. Maybe some on Jean-Michel. Maybe more on Jean-Michel than the house.
She found her sandals and gathered her bag just as Jean-Michel walked back into the room. “No, no, no,” he said regrettably.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she said to him. He came over to her, wrapping his large arms around her. “I have clients that are depending on me. I have work to do, Jean-Michel.” She looked up into his sexy bedroom eyes and started to reconsider.
“Back at the motel?” he said shaking his head. “You shouldn’t stay in that place.”
“How much longer on the master bedroom and the bath?” she asked, as he kissed along her neck eliciting so many wonderful sensations.
“Maybe a week.” He took her by the hand, as they walked to the back door where she had entered. “You could always stay here with me.”
“No,” she said assuredly. Her refusal was for self-preservation only. “If I stay here, I would never get any work finished. And”—she giggled as he nipped along her neck—“you would never finish the house.”
“We would be in bed constantly, yes?” said Jean-Michel. “Making love? It is a beautiful concept. But you are right.”
They stood in his doorway staring at each other, unwilling to say good night. A sadness came over her that she wouldn’t see him again for a few days. She dismissed it. It had been the sex. She was addicted to his dick and that was all.
“I have to go,” she said with a sigh.
“I want you to know something.” His gaze penetrated hers. “You are mine, Trisha Thibodeaux. I am yours. I’m not afraid to say those words, but I know that you are so I won’t push you. Yet. But I am going love courting you.”
“Courting me?”
“Yes,” he said to her intently. “I am going to tempt you, and tease you, and dissolve your inhibitions. I want you to discover pleasure with me, Taffy. True pleasure. Prepare yourself, coquette.”
He bent his head and seductively teased her lips into an erotic kiss that she felt down to her toes. When they parted, she started to walk away.
“No,” he said, pulling her back to him and kissing her deeply once again.
A small moan escaped her lips, and she once again tried to leave. She got to the end of his pathway before he ran down to meet her.
“Not yet. Wait,” he said embracing her into his arms and devouring her mouth. “You have mesmerized me, Taffy. Good night, coquette.”
Taffy nodded dumbly, as Jean-Michel helped her into her car. She sat there for a second trying to remember how to start the damn thing. Put the key in the ignition, turn the key, and then back up without hitting anything. She waved to him, and tried like hell to make it back to the motel without turning that damn car around.
* * * *
Jean-Michel was smiling as he walked back into the house. He didn’t want to let her leave. He wanted her stay in his bed. He wanted to wake with her in the morning, but he reassured himself that the day would soon come when she would be in his arms all night.
He walked through the house turning the lights off, and taking the wine glasses into the kitchen. It took him longer than it would have, since thoughts of Taffy would come to his mind, making him stop and think about her. Her body. She was so…Full. He loved the way her body moved and shook as they’d made love. But it was much more than that.
He’d been in love before. Four years before, he was about to marry Sitrine. He’d gone back to France to see his mother and had met Sitrine in a small coffee shop in Couchey. After a brief courtship, he’d asked her to marry him. Thinking back, he didn’t know why he’d asked her. Something was missing in their relationship. There was love, but it was muted. They’d made love, but it was restrained. Their passion was conditional. Sitrine never liked PDA. She seemed to live her life on medium. He’d ended the relationship because he’d started to live h
is life on medium with her. He told himself from that moment on he would love completely or not at all. He would not mute what he was feeling. He wouldn’t make love restrained. He would experience love with abandon.
He knew Taffy was the woman for him. She was only afraid of love. Maybe it was something that had happened in her past, or someone that had hurt her. He only knew that she was trying to fight her feelings. He’d told his friends about her, and about what he was feeling for her. They’d told him to walk away. They told him not to waste his time on her if she was unwilling to be the woman that he wanted. He only wished that it was that simple. He was willing to take his time with her. She needed coaxing.
He was smiling, as he walked up the stairs to his bedroom. He was going to enjoy helping her discover her sensuality. He wanted her to know just how much he loved her. Showing her was something he was looking forward to.
Chapter 7
Jean-Michel knew the reason Lester had asked him to go fishing. Lester had few days off duty. Many of those days he would spend with Thalia and the kids. But not that day. It had only been a few days since he’d had dinner with Taffy. His sister had enlisted Lester to get as much information out of him as he could. Jean-Michel was waiting for the barrage of questions he was sure Thalia had prompted Lester to ask him.
He cast his line out into the water from where he stood on the back of Lester’s boat. Lester was in the front. It was quiet. There weren’t many out on the water on a weekday. Jean-Michel should be at the house, but had left his foreman in charge of the men. Lester had insisted they go fishing, so Jean-Michel was waiting for Lester to begin his questioning. Whether he was willing to answer him was another thing.
“So, Thalia told me you had dinner with Taffy the other night,” Lester said to him finally.
Jean-Michel smiled at his brother-in-law. “Yes. I did,” he said reeling in his line and putting it into the pole holder on the side of the boat.
Lester glanced over at Jean-Michel sitting down in the bow seat, crossing his arms as he stared back at him. “What?” Lester asked.
“I’m waiting. I know that Thalia said something to you, so I am waiting,” said Jean-Michel.
Lester reeled his line in, sticking his pole into the holder next to Jean-Michel’s. He sat down in the other seat, taking a soda from the ice chest, and throwing one over to Jean-Michel. “Okay,” he said. “Thalia said that she went over to your place the other night, and that she walked in on you and Taffy making out.”
“She did not walk in on us making out,” said Jean-Michel.
“Well, she said she was pretty sure you two were either making out or having sex.” Lester stared knowingly at him. “Because several of your buttons on your shirt were missing, and it smelled of sex.”
“Yes, that might be true,” Jean-Michel said with a smile.
Lester sat smiling over at him. “You don’t say? Well, brother-in-law, bravo.”
“It wasn’t a conquest, Lester,” said Jean-Michel. “Taffy isn’t a conquest.”
“She’s it?” Lester asked with interest.
“I have never felt anything like what I feel for her,” Jean-Michel said. “I can’t imagine my life without her, and don’t tell me it isn’t possible because I’ve only just met her. I know what I’m feeling, Lester.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. “Okay. Does she feel the same?”
Jean-Michel smiled. “I don’t know. I haven’t told her that I’m in love with her. She’s afraid. That I feel. She’s afraid of love. I’m giving her time. I’m going to court her.”
Lester nodded in understanding. “Yes. Old-fashioned courting. Women now might say they don’t want a man to court them, but once you start with the flowers and the candy…”
“Lester? Flowers and candy?” Jean-Michel shook his head. “That is what you used on my sister? That is pitiful. Please, don’t give me tips on courting. I should give you tips.”
Lester laughed aloud, letting his laughter echo throughout the landscape. “Yes, you probably could. So, things did heat up the night Thalia showed up?”
“Lester, I will only say that Taffy and I became more acquainted.”
Lester nodded. “And that you’re in love with her.”
“Yes. And that I’m in love with her.” Jean-Michel drained his soda can. “So, I thought you brought me out here to go fishing?”
* * * *
Taffy walked through the house a few days later noticing the progress. The upper cabinets were installed in the kitchen. The roof was complete. They were now installing some of the double-paned windows and repairing the front porch. But the whole house was noticeably changed.
“’Ello,” a voice said behind her.
She turned smiling at him, as he emerged from one of the rooms. He was wearing a white wife-beater T-shirt that just conjured all kinds of sinful, dirty images in her head. Those T-shirts should come with warning labels. Warning! Do not wear if you are well-muscled, have any tattoos on your arms, or are a sexy muthafucker, thought Taffy.
“Hi,” she said softly. “Pretty busy today.”
Several of his men walked through the hallway. There were men working everywhere, leaving no privacy for them to talk.
“Yes,” he said. “I should get back to work, but if I can bother you for one moment, Miss Thibodeaux. There is a pressing problem I need to talk to you about.”
“Huh?” she said, as Jean-Michel led her into the small space that would become the downstairs powder room when most of his men had walked away.
Once inside the small space, Jean-Michel pulled her close to him. “Now, we can say a better ’ello,” he said kissing her passionately.
When they came up for air, Taffy felt dizzy. His hands roamed along her body branding every inch as his. Maybe it was the small enclosed space, but she definitely felt as though she could faint dead away each time he touched her.
He pulled something from his pocket. “You left something at my place the other night,” he said holding her panties in front of her.
She took them from him, tucking them into the side of her purse. “Didn’t you rip them off? I can’t wear then anymore.”
“The next ones I rip off, I’ll be sure to keep.”
They kissed again, before Taffy’s attention was turned toward familiar voices. She and Jean-Michel walked out of the powder room careful to exit separately. Taffy was thankful there were no workmen in the vicinity, as Jean-Michel disappeared to continue his work. But the sound of that voice came again.
“Shit,” she said softly.
Lou Pearl and DePaul appeared through the doorway of the dining room. “What the hell have you done to my house, girl?” Lou Pearl said to her chewing on her gum as usual.
“What are you doing here, Lou Pearl?” Taffy asked with a grimace. “And it’s no longer your house. It never was your house. It was Grammy’s house, and she willed it to my dad. All of this was settled in court, Lou Pearl.”
“A Yankee court,” said Lou Pearl. “I want a local judge to look into this ruling. When he does, this will be my house again.”
“It won’t matter whether a judge in California views the case or a judge here in Mandeville. The ruling stands. The papers state that the ruling stands in all courts and systems nationwide.”
Lou Pearl seemed to dismiss what she said, walking through the house as if she did indeed own it. “You moved the damn staircase? You’re ruining my mama’s house! The damn staircase goes in the middle of the damn hall, girl.”
“Middle of the hall,” echoed DePaul.
“The staircase was to the right of the hall when the house was built, Lou Pearl,” Taffy said to her. “It was only moved back to its original location.” Taffy didn’t know why she was compelled to defend herself to Lou Pearl. The woman brought out the worst in her. “Go home, Lou Pearl.”
DePaul was standing by the wall where a sawhorse was positioned. A plank of wood lay across the sawhorse with broken pieces of tile samples on top. DePaul was
throwing the tile pieces on the already ruined floor, as if he were damaging something she cared about.
Taffy glared over at him, as he sneered back at her. “DePaul,” she said. “You do understand that those tiles are already broken, and the floors have to be redone? You aren’t doing anything. But carry on, since it seems to amuse you so much.”
“Don’t you talk to my boy like that,” Lou Pearl warned her.
“You can’t talk to me like that,” said DePaul.
“Yes,” Taffy said crossing her arms in front of her. “He is your fifty-two year old, boy. That is definitely evident.”
The slight flew over Lou Pearl’s head, as she only frowned at her. “Where the hell is the sunroom?” Lou Pearl continued, as she began to walk toward the back of the house.
“Where’s the sunroom!” DePaul yelled.
Jean-Michel appeared, as if he’d formed out of thin air. “It was moved to the east side of the house,” he said in answer.
Lou Pearl stood staring at Jean-Michel. “Who the hell are you?” she said popping her gum in earnest.
“Who is he, Mama?” asked DePaul.
Jean-Michel held his hand out to her. “Jean-Michel Batiste. I am the contractor.”
Pop! Pop! Pop! Lou Pearl looked like a cow chewing its cud. She didn’t take Jean-Michel’s hand. “Oh, I heard about you. You’re that Frenchie. You did my friend Moxy’s veranda last year, huh?”
Jean-Michel let his hand drop. “I can’t say,” he said to her. “I’m very busy, but it is possible.”
“I want the sunroom moved back to where it’s supposed to be!” Lou Pearl’s voice echoed through the hallway.
“The sunroom was moved to the east side of the house to take advantage of the sun,” said Jean-Michel. “In the back of the house, where it was, the trees shaded the room, and it was not used to its best advantage. Miss Thibodeaux is the owner, so I believe her decision stands.”
“Her decision don’t mean jack shit to me,” Lou Pearl said indignantly. “This here was my mama’s house. She stole it from me.” Lou Pearl pointed at Taffy. “From me and my family, and that don’t include her!”
Enigma of the Heart Page 8
